Incompatibility between new and existing products is a major problem in many technical disciplines including networking and signal switching. Often new products are developed having increased performance and speed but customers have invested heavily in legacy products.
Incompatibility is a particular problem with routing-platforms. Generally a router includes a chassis which can be rack mounted and has different types of slots into which cards and modules slide into, and also contains basic components such as power supply(s) and fan(s). The modules inserted into the slots are line cards which are the actual printed circuit boards that handle packet data and analog signaling ingress and egress. Line cards provide one or more interfaces over which traffic flows. Thus, depending on the number of slots and interfaces, a router can be configured to work with a variety of networking protocols.
In some cases slots compatible with a new versions of a module are incompatible with legacy modules. One example is where new modules are designed for receiving power in tandem with 10/100/1000 Mbps data according to the Power over Ethernet (PoE) standard (IEEE 802.3af). PoE modules must be isolated from the backplane and are provided with a second connector (−48VRET) coupled to the power supply for −48V return current.
However, a slot designed to received devices utilizing PoE is not compatible with legacy parts that are powered by conventional techniques.
The challenges in the field of communications continue to increase with demands for more and better techniques having greater flexibility and adaptability. Therefore, a need has arisen for a new system and method for providing reconfigurable slots in a router chassis.